Knowing the Ending

“No!” Shouted Jon. “I don't get it!”

Clarissa stared at her hands in her lap and tried not to cry. She knew it was her fault they were there. She was the one who cheated. But she could not understand why Jon wanted, no needed, to know every detail.

The marriage counselor cleared his throat. “Clarissa,” he said gently. “It might help if you look at this like a story, you are writing. You have had an experience, and are writing a story about it. You understand how all of the pieces come together. You know all of the facts that were collected. All the experiences that led to the conclusion. Jon is merely reading the story now, and does not have the benefit of all of that information,” the counselor said, gesturing towards Jon. “When he has all of that information, he will be able to draw his conclusions about you and Brad. And then about you and him. He will be able to make decisions. Maybe he will see things the way you want him too. Maybe he won't. But it is unfair to expect him to have the same conclusive feelings you do, without yet, knowing all of the facts. In the meantime, it is human nature to 'dream it up' on his own. Based on what he knows and feels. Chances are, he is dreaming up things far worse than the truth. He needs to know the facts.” The counselor paused, thinking of how to close the analogy. “It's like writing that story. It is unfair of you as the author, to expect your reader to have the same closure that you do. Hopefully by the end, they will. But in the meantime, their mind takes the story down a lot of different paths, to get to an ending. One the author already knows.”